THE GOOD DINOSAUR - film reviewBy Mark Geraghty. December 26, 2015

THE GOOD DINOSAUR is the second new Pixar film to be released in 2015, but if viewers are expecting another INSIDE OUT, they’ll be disappointed. There’s not a shred of high concept thinking to be found in THE GOOD DINOSAUR; just a lot of recycled ideas that have been matched with some of the most gorgeous outdoors animation that’s ever been seen in a film of this genre. If ever there was a case to answer of form winning out over substance, THE GOOD DINOSAUR would have a pretty good shot at the trophy. Anyone who follows Pixar Studios release slate will know that THE GOOD DINOSAUR was one of those projects that ran completely off the rails. Long-standing Pixar team man Bob Petersen championed the idea into the production phase, but was moved off it when it became clear the film had stalled. Peter Sohn took over the project and, in the process, completely rewrote the story and replaced the cast. The scope of the change meant that Pixar went without a 2014 release, as Sohn put his crew to work to get the project on track.

Despite best efforts, THE GOOD DINOSAUR never finds its feet in the way audiences have come to expect from the world’s preeminent animation studio. The story is reminiscent of The Lion King, but lacks the strength of the relationship between father and son of that film. Instead, Henry (Jeffrey Wright), the father dinosaur, takes pity on his son Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), who is the runt of the litter and struggles to “make his mark” no matter what. Arlo’s subsequent misadventures feel like second-hand versions of previous, great Disney movies. His encounter with a group of particularly nasty Pterodactyls, voiced by Steve Zahn, Mandy Freund & Steven Clay Hunter, once again, feel as though they were lifted straight out of The Lion King but with voice performances not nearly as memorable as Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin.

There’s also the question of how “age appropriate” THE GOOD DINOSAUR is for younger children. Pixar have never been shy about placing their characters in peril to create drama in their films, but the story has something of a mean streak that would surprise parents who take younger kids to see the film. Arlo is mercilessly goaded by his siblings Buck and Libby, the Peter Sohn voiced Forest Woodbush makes light of cognitive short-comings and even Henry goes out of his way to place Arlo in danger just to prove a point. Even Arlo himself is guilty of thoughtlessness when he prevents his human companion Spot (Jack Bright) from joining with an older human who calls to The young boy, opting instead to force him to continue on the dangerous journey back to the dinosaur’s home. Arlo’s actions bring into question whether in fact he is, in fact, a good dinosaur or just a scared kid who is unable to function without somebody else being always there to help him, whether it be his father or, later in the movie, Spot.

It’s so rare for Pixar to have a bad day at the office, but THE GOOD DINOSAUR is a victim of a tortured development and, without having any knowledge of that situation, the viewer will still sense that they have been told told this story many times before and with greater originality. Much of the story feels forced and it never finds a tone that allows for events to unfold organically, opting instead for a series of set-pieces that never meld together to create a flowing, continuous whole. It’s a great shame, as the Pixar animators have gone all out to imagine the landscape in which Arlo’s adventure takes place. Unfortunately, despite the film’s denouement, THE GOOD DINOSAUR never quite makes its mark.

THE REVENANT film review By Mark Geraghty December 7, 2015

Releasing in Australia on January 7, 2015

To refer to Alejandro Innaritu’s THE REVENANT as a “movie” or a “film” relative to the vast majority of what is released these days would be understating the power of what the Spanish filmmaker has delivered with his latest offering. Make no mistake, THE REVENANT does not flinch in its depiction of 18th Century frontier America and many may find Innaritu’s determination for authenticity too much. There are no real heroes and the villain, if one truly exists in such a compromised environment, is not a one note cardboard cutout. Once upon a time, John Ford’s films about the American frontier fell firmly on the side of favouring the “White Man” and the idea that Manifest Destiny should supplant all other established cultures as European settlers moved from America’s East Coast across the great plains of the country’s middle, up into the Rocky Mountains and eventually on to the lighter, brighter West Coast. Innaritu’s film presents a dark, grim view of this idea, depicting the European frontiersmen to be no more evolved than the American Indian cultures they went about displacing through a hundred years of “progress” across the United States of America.

Innaritu and Mark L. Smith’s screenplay opens with an extended battle sequences that establishes their political viewpoint up front and demonstrates the cultural clash in the most violent way imaginable. Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his half-Pawnee Indian son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) are hunting food away from their fur-trapping expedition when a group of Arikara Indians attack the main party in search of an abducted girl, Powaqa (Melwa Nakehk’o). The intensity of this sequence, which lasts for several minutes, has already been compared by other critics who have reviewed the film as comparable to the Western cinema genre’s equivalent of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN’s opening, and it’s a very good comparison. Innaritu’s sequence is more confronting, as he and his wonderfully-talented cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki opt for more close-up shots and point the camera up from the ground or at eye level to capture the mayhem that unravels as arrows, tomahawks and rifles tear apart the two combating groups. Glass, Hawk, Captain Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Bridger (Will Poulter), along with a small group of other survivors escape via their river boat, but soon realise the Arikara will cut them off further down the river and decide to abandon ship and head over the mountains to get back to the safety of Fort Kiowa.

Soon after, Glass, while scouting ahead, inadvertently crosses the path of several bear cubs. He realises all too late that the mother bear is behind him and is unable to fire his rifle before she attacks him. The sheer brutality of this scene will leave many viewers reeling, as there has never been anything like this sequence seen in a film. Not only is the sequence brutal, it’s long. Innaritu deliberately protracts the bear attack out, as the massive creature attacks Glass twice.over the course of several minutes. Glass suffers extensive injuries to his throat, back and legs, but recovers his rifle momentarily and gets a shot off, hitting the bear in the neck. Enraged, the monster attacks again, determined to finish the job, but Glass with all of his remaining strength manages to unsheath his hunting knife and land enough blows to halts the animal’s attack. Matters are made worse as the giant creature knocks Glass off the edge of the embankment into the gully below, but, mortally wounded itself, comes crashing down upon him, crushing one of his legs as the giant beast comes to rest on top of him. The other members of the Rocky Mountain Trading Company’s party happen upon Glass and provide medical attention, but no one is convinced he’ll survive. Captain Henry has a makeshift stretcher made and the men take turns at carrying Glass until they reach the base of the Rocky Mountains. Realising it will be impossible to carry him over the mountains, Henry asks for volunteers to stay with Glass and Hawk until a rescue party can be sent. Fitzgerald and Bridger volunteer, but only after Henry makes it financially beneficial for them to do so. This proves to be a mistake on Henry’s part, as Fitzgerald proves to be totally unreliable and his lack of humanity comes to the fore as he murders Hawk, lies to Bridger about seeing the Arikara on the river bank and leaves Glass for dead after trying to bury him alive!

THE REVENANT is a stunning film and Innaritu does not swerve around difficult subject matter. He simply crashes through it and, along the way, drags the viewer with him. The performances are just about as physical as they come, as the character’s reactions to their environment are extremely primal and, in most instances, are borne out of a need to just survive; regardless of whether it’s the attacking Indians, Bear or harsh weather. There’s no doubt it was a difficult film to shoot and most of the main players don’t appear to be acting; they look as though they are simply worn out from the conditions. There’s blazing intensity from both DiCaprio and Hardy and the latter (although at times in unintelligible in terms of dialogue) captures the off-beat internal logic of his character to turn in yet another strong 2015 performance. The film will, no doubt, be considered favourably in the 2015 Award season, but its grim subject matter and oblique stab at spirituality requires too much contemplation on the part of the viewer at a time when the world finds itself confronted with these all too familiar concepts streaming through the daily news channels from other parts of the globe. THE REVENANT only serves to reinforce that the struggle for survival is one that has always been with humanity and will continue, always...

Welcome to "Not quite Fantastique", where I use my blog space to review movies that don't quite fit into the Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comic Book, Horror and Action genre focus of the Screen Fantastique website. I take my commitments to reviewing movies seriously, despite my reviewing and this site being primarily for non-commercial purposes. I'm lucky to be invited by local film distributors to so many wonderful films and the blog space on my site is the best way to create a home for movies that I see and want to share my view with a broader audience (whoever may be reading; if anyone at all...) I hope you enjoy the reviews that I post here and they help to inform your movie-going choices.

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA - film review

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA is one of 2015’s more unusual mainstream film releases. It’s big budget, period drama with a cast of well known actors from Ron Howard, one of Hollywood’s better Directors. In spite of these positives, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA does not in any way fall into the category of “feelgood”. The film, based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s book, tells the story of the Whaleship Essex and its crew, whose encounter with a white whale in 1820 saw the ship destroyed and crew lost at sea for 90 days. Screenwriter Chris Leavitt takes the book’s most dramatic sequences and turns them into a reasonably tight story that is focussed more upon the characters than their encounter with the white whale. This proves to be a good move, as it becomes clear the longer the film plays, there’s only so much dramatic tension to be had from the encounter with the white whale.

The story is told in flashback, as young author Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) tracks down Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the last survivor of the Essex. Melville (who, in real life, would base MOBY DICK upon the story of the Essex) wants to find out the truth of the matter before there is no one left alive to recount what actually happened and whether the legend of the white whale is true. Nickerson is reluctant, but his wife (Michelle Fairley) forces him to recount the story in an effort to have her husband exorcise a lifetime of personal demons. Nickerson tells Melville that the story of Essex is really the story of two men, the ship’s Captain, George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and the First Mate, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth). Pollard is a third generation whaler from Nantucket, whose family is well established and controls much of what happens in the town because of their whale oil interests. Chase is from the lower classes and has something of a chip on his shoulder about not being made a Captain of his own whaling vessel.

Pollard and Chase are reluctantly paired together aboard the Essex and it becomes clear that their differing approach to seamanship are incompatible. Early in their journey, Pollard nearly sinks the Essex with his determination to test the crew during a storm. The ship is badly damaged and Pollard contemplates returning to Nantucket, but Chase argues that it would be ill-advised to return to shore without a single barrel of the precious whale oil they have been charged to collect. Pollard relents, setting in motion a train of events that see the Essex head as far south as any ship ever in search of whales. Their search culminates in the discovery of the largest whale pod any of the men aboard the Essex has ever seen, but it comes with a terrible price, as they encounter a white whale who seems to possess an almost human-like desire for vengeance.

The first half of IN THE HEART OF THE SEA is all about the build-up to the encounter with the white whale and the Second Act culminates with the Essex under siege from the mighty beast. The final Act of the movie looks at the aftermath of the encounter and how men, regardless of their station, deal with adversity. The flashback narrative allows Ron Howard to frame each challenge of the final Act with an ongoing emotional commentary from Gleeson and Wishaw’s characters, as the crew of the Essex become more desperate and their ability just to exist becomes more compromised. The story becomes quite grim as the elements take their toll and several more encounters with the White whale result in serious injuries and death. Howard never succumbs to gratuity but the decisions the remaining crew of the Essex take to survive reduce them to the most basic level of humanity; forcing them into acts that fly in the face of Pollard’s Darwinistic view of his place in the world. The film comes out much more on the side of Chase, whose rugged, hands-on approach to life and appreciation of the world around him is an affirmation of the movie’s “Green” theme philosophy.

Despite the film’s attempts to examine both the young Nickerson (Tom Holland) and the older Nickerson’s painful survival story, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA never quite hits the nail on the head. It’s an extremely well made film and both leads (Hemsworth and Walker) turn in solid performances, as do Wishaw and Gleeson along with Cillian Murphy as Hemsworth brother-in-arms Matthew and young Frank Dillane as Pollard’s cousin Owen Coffin. Technically, the film is solid, although the editing by Howard’s regular team of Dan Hanley and Mike Hill is hard to follow during key sequences involving the Essex being battered, either by storms or white whales. The cuts feel too fast and it’s extremely difficult to follow the various characters as they fight for survival. IN THE HEART OF THE SEA is a film won’t make viewers feel as though they have been treated to an outstanding piece of cinema, but it may help to bring a greater level of understanding of a small sliver of history that helped to inspire one of the great novels in MOBY DICK.

Earlier in 2015, the Sky Living channel premiered THE ENFIELD HAUNTING, a three-part series based on the 1977 book by Guy Lyon Playfair called 'This House Is Haunted'. The series chronicles the events that took place in an average suburban house where witnesses claim to have experienced "supernatural" phenomenon, including a malevolent poltergeist. The three-part series stars Timothy Spall (who mainstream audiences will remember as Wormtail from the HARRY POTTER films) as Maurice Grosse, an amateur paranomral researcher who becomes involved in the case. The series also stars Matthew Macfayden as author and paranormal researcher Guy Lyon Playfair, Juliet Stevenson as Betty Grosse and Eleanor Worthington-Cox as Janet Hodgson, the young girl at the centre of the strange events that took place in the house.

The series has just been released on digital download and is available through Google Play.

Episode One

The first episode is the best of the three, as the element of mystery surrounding what's happening carries all the way through to its final moments. Given this is a TV show (not a movie), there's some elements that prevent the episode from going "over-the-top" in terms of impact. While some effort has been made to create a 1970s look and feel, the show feels like it's been made quite cheaply. Many of the effects are created through traditional in-camera techniques with only a few computer-generated visual effects to create the supernatural presence. The focus of the show is on the characters; mainly Timothy Spall and Matthew Macfayden as Grosse and Playfair. Spall's character is coming to terms with the tragic death of his daughter and the case becomes an opportunity for him to attain forgiveness in not preventing the motorcycle accident that claims her life.

Episode Two

After experiencing the malevolent presence firsthand, Macfayden's Playfair takes a more active role in the second episode, as he and Grosse start acting more like a team. The "emergence" of the poltergeist, by way of young Janet (who starts speaking with the entity's voice), provides Grosse with the opportunity to find out who the spirit is and what it wants. Playfair takes the chance to bring more paranormal researchers into the Hodgson's home, but their presence becomes an unwelcome one for the family.

The series starts to falter once the identity of the poltergeist is revealed and more time is spent communicating with it. Despite the distorted, unnatural voice it speaks with, there's nothing especially frightening about what it says and its motivation for its actions are not especially clear.

Episode Three

The final episode resolves the two key threads of the series, as the focus comes back to Maurice Grosse and his involvement with the Hodgson family. Timothy Spall continues to do a nice job as the show's central character, but the pace of the story slows to a crawl as a lot of time is spent examining the psychological state of Maurice and his wife Betty, who feels abandoned by her husband in the wake of her own grief for their daughter's death. Maurice does get an opportunity to deal with the circumstances of his daughter's death, but poor old Betty gets short-changed.

The most troubling aspect of Episode Three is writer Joshua St.Johnston's reliance on young Eleanor to move the story forward as the adults around her seem all consumed by their own problems. The poor kid (along with her sister) is being subjected to all sorts of nasty stuff (mutilation & weird voices to name a couple), but no one really seems to give a toss. In the end, it's Eleanor who works out why the poltergeist is persisting and manages to get Maurice (along with Guy) out of his funk long enough to see an end to her supernatural molestation.

The verdict...

THE ENFIELD HAUNTING is interesting because it is based on a "real" case and the characters in the story are real people. Director Kristoffer Nyholm tries to inject some visual style into proceedings and manages to create some effective sequences throughout the three episodes. The series is much more of a "Haunted House" story than anything else, so anyone looking for gore factor, violence and lots of jump scares will be disappointed by THE ENFIELD HAUNTING. The show's theme is more about the impact that death has on the living and how families touched by tragedy deal with it. The series is definitely worth watching, but it's one that's been made on the cheap. There are some problems with the story, but the quality of the acting outweighs this. Timothy Spall is excellent and Matthew Macfayden provides Playfair with some Upper Middle Class toff that's entirely appropriate. Eleanor Worthington-Cox is also very good and helps sell the reality of the paranormal happenings wit her under-stated performance.

2015 has not been a good year for the Horror genre, as far as mainstream feature film releases are concerned. Local (Australian) film distributors have been careful with the horror titles they have released, confining themselves to mostly supernatural thrillers that have a relatively low gore factor. This strategy makes sense, as the promotion of a feature film is a costly exercise and the market for the genuinely horrifying is not large enough to book cinema screens around the country for any great length of time.

This leaves Horror fans with very few options when it comes to indulging their desire for the genre on a cinema screen. Enter Jason Blum. In a relatively short period of time, Blum has created a catalogue of low-budget horror films that operate in the M to MA rated space here in Australia and the PG-13 to R rated space in the United States. It's hard to believe that since 2007, when Blum helped produce the first PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, he has either produced or executive produced 52 films. That's 52 films in 8 years; most of which have been in the Horror genre in some shape or form. Blumhouse Productions have become so synonymous with the genre that the major studios all work closely with Blum to secure the distribution rights for properties built around his production model. The reason for this is simple. Blum makes sure that films either developed in-house or outside productions brought in under his tent can be made cheaply and quickly. With the right marketing, a studio can distribute one of Blum's films and get a cut of the ticket income with very little financial risk.

Things are looking pretty grim for a film's marketing campaign when set-ups like the one above are a key part of getting bums on seats, but that's what happened with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION when it was released In October 2015.

The problem with the quality of the Horror films released in 2015 has been a result of the diminishing creative returns from a number of key Blumhouse franchises. INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3, SINISTER 2 and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION all looked as though they had nothing left in the tank by the end of them. The latest PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is a special case in point, as it was the sixth film in the series and was trying to tie up a whole heap of loose ends from the previous five entries. The result was a couple of jump scares, some cheap looking visual effects and an ending that had cinema patrons audibly asking "Is that it?" as the credits rolled. INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3 tried to pull a swifty on audiences by doing a prequel but trying to set the franchise up to prolong the participation of key carry-over characters. The result was just a confusing hotch-potch that only made sense if you applied the film's own internal, flimsy logic to your own way of thinking. As for SINISTER 2, that didn't even get a cinema release, as it appeared and then disappeared off the local distributors schedule.

Perhaps in recognition that the franchise well was about to run dry, Blumhouse found a couple of "Found Footage" newbies to release on an unsuspecting public. UNFRIENDED and THE GALLOWS. The former remains my pick for worst film of 2015 to get a cinema release. The story pitch must have sounded like high concept horror and, to a certain extent, had the premise been executed with a better level of professionalism, it may have been a good film. The problem is, it's an incoherent shambles that has no logic - internal or otherwise - to make the viewer believe what they are viewing is remotely plausible. Similarly, THE GALLOWS stretches the "Found Footage" technique to absolute breaking point, using a combination of a video camera and smartphones to construct the in-camera point-of-view. This film is also an example of Blumhouse Productions developing somebody else's work and shepherding it through their production system. Despite my negativity toward the movie itself, I do feel that Jason Blum and his team should be credited for taking film makers Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing under their wing and securing the distribution support of New Line Cinema. Unfortuantely, this does not change the concern that THE GALLOWS suffers from the same problem as INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3

If sequels and new releases weren't bad enough, 2015 has also brought viewers one of the most pointless movies to ever see the dark of a cinema - POLTERGEIST. The 1982 version of POLTERGEIST isn't really a horror film; it's a piece of stunt film making to demonstrate that no matter what Steven Spielberg was associated with, it would be commercially successful. It's memorable for a couple of set-pieces, but it's pop culture status has seen the film viewed through rose coloured glasses. Not that much really happens and the opportunity to explore the supernatural dimension is contained to the last part of the story. At some point in time, Sam Raimi thought it was a good idea to co-opt right owner MGM into a remake starring Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt with Gil Kenan. Unfortunately, this turned out to be not such a good idea after all and the finished product came and went from cinema screens pretty quickly.

Yep, not a whole lot of scary going on around here. In fact, the scariest thing about the 2015 remake of POLTERGEIST could be the clown poster on the right hand side of the screen. I'd suggest viewing only if you're having trouble sleeping and want a quick remedy.

In October 2015, Guillermo del Toro threw Horror fans a curve ball with the release of CRIMSON PEAK. What many thought was going to be an upmarket horror film turned out to be an off-kilter Gothic romance whose main character just happened to be able to see Ghosts. Director del Toro stated as much after the film's release, but there was no hiding the disappointment among both the Director's fan base and viewers looking for more in the way of genuine scares.

The final stretch of 2015 sees a couple of new Horror entries which may or may not add to the woes the Horror genre has experienced in 2015. SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE and KRAMPUS are both scheduled before Christmas 2015. SCOUTS GUIDE looks like a ridiculous Zombie romp (as the title suggests) and the film is very much geared toward the young adult end of the market whose fascination with series like THE WALKING DEAD has sparked commercial interest in the "Undead". KRAMPUS looks to be a more serious affair and the film's first trailer suggests that it could actually have the most suspense of any Horror genre releases in 2015. The big issue for Horror films in consideration of what has been released in 2015 is the originality of stories and the technical quality of their production. Too much quality is being sacrificed in order to maximise the return-on-investment. The "Found Footage" technique is undermining the genre. Distributors and production companies need to agree to develop properties that display the skill, technique and production values afforded mainstream genres, otherwise, the most frightening thing about Horror films is whether the genre survives as a viable option for the big screen.

Earlier this week, with great sadness, movie fans learned that Writer-Director Wes Craven passed away, after a battle with brain cancer.

My first experience with a Wes Craven was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. I watched it on video one school holidays, when I was 13, at a friend's house. I will always remember that day because a group of us had trouped down to the local video store and hired both CONAN THE DESTROYER and the first ELM STREET movie.

To be honest, Craven's film scared me more than what I thought a film could. It wasn't so much the graphic elements of the film, but the concept. A boogeyman who had the ability to enter into other people's dreams was something that inhabited my psychology and led me to my very own set of dream nightmares!

Despite my own adolescent fear-reaction to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I started to keep track of Craven' career from that point; primarily through the wonderful CINEFANTASTIQUE magazine that my way of keeping informed about what was happening with science fiction, fantasy and horror films throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, before the internet and almost instant communication.

Craven's next three films were DEADLY FRIEND, THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW and SHOCKER. Of the three, it was THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW that interested me most, as the film was an adaptation of the Wade Davis book that recounted a 'zombiefication' case in Haiti, a Caribbean country where Voodoo is practised as a religion. The film, starring Bill Pulman, once again, dealt with an other-world setting where characters had the ability to move back and forth with no limitations. The film was well made, but the story was quite procedural and lacked the inventiveness of ELM STREET.

After the relative disappointment of SHOCKER and THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, Craven finally returned to the ELM STREET franchise in 1994 with NEW NIGHTMARE. The film was like nothing else I had seen as it intentionally messed with convention and used the fictional character of Freddy Krueger to stalk the original film's stars Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and even Craven himself. Craven cleverly creates and fictional family for the real Langenkamp and, in a case of life imitating art, her fictional son Dylan becomes a real-world version of Langenkamp's Nancy character to defeat Krueger. It may sound convoluted, but it actually works and, I remember, a group of us who went to see the movie were impressed with how Craven brought the whole thing together. This blurring of the lines has since come to be tagged as being META, due to the movie's self-referential story where the viewer needs an understanding of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series for the film they are watching to make 100% sense. It's META-NESS is nothing compared to what Craven served audiences next.

In 1996, Craven unleashed SCREAM upon audiences. With a script by up-and-coming writer Kevin Williamson and a cast of young, attractive actors, Craven set about redefining horror movies, allowing his characters to act with a level of self-awareness that was a departure from the Slasher film format of the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. The film drew a lot of attention with its opening sequence, where Drew Barrymore's Casey is murdered in the first few minutes, as Craven messed with audience expectations to near-Hitchkockian levels with echoes of Janet Leigh's demise in PSYCHO. While SCREAM didn't affect me in the same way ELM STREET had a decade before, I certainly appreciated Craven's skill in taking well-worn tropes, turning them on their head and messing with my expectations about what was coming next...

The success of SCREAM allowed Craven to finally develop a franchise in the manner of his choosing; unlike the ELM STREET series, where his limited involvement after the first film saw the franchise develop Freddy Krueger into a pop culture icon, whose wise-cracking lines to his victims became the focus and the central theme of teen isolation (so well explored in the first film) faded into memory. The subsequent SCREAM films continued to mess with convention and, by SCREAM 3, came to acknowledge the series' own inherent weakness of franchise-fatigue. The series appeared to have run out of steam by the end of the third film, but Craven returned for one last shot in 2011 with SCREAM 4. Not his best effort.

Craven's film output slowed after the success of the SCREAM series. Between 2000 and his death this week, Craven only directed four films, including SCREAM 4. While his earlier films prior to ELM STREET, such as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and THE HILLS HAVE EYES are regarded as horror genre classics, I've never had the chance to sit in a darkened cinema and experience those films in the manner which he intended. Fortunately, I have had the chance from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, I have seen all of his films on the big screen. Craven was a storyteller

It seems so unfair that randomness has such a huge bearing on life. Such is the manner in which the great film music composer James Horner passed from this world less than twenty-four hours ago. As the initial reports came in and started flashing up on my phone via Google Alerts and the Variety Breaking News alert that a plane registered to Horner had crashed, I hoped against hope that this was another Harrison ford type accident where Horner (if he was one of the occupants) walked away largely unscathed. Sadly, this was not to be... As I was taking off on my own flight (albeit as a passenger on a commercial flight between Melbourne and Sydney), there was still no confirmation that Horner was even in the aircraft when it crashed. Unfortunately, by the time I reached my destination and switched my phone back on, reports about the crash had become much clearer and that James Horner was both the pilot and sole occupant aboard the crashed plane. He did not survive the crash.

Horner's film music was unique. In the 1980s, when he first came to prominence, his scores were big, bombastic even. Horns and trumpets would swirl around the audience, but then he'd sneak in some kind change-up or change-down that went with the film's narrative to accentuate the pacing. Even though he sounded like Goldsmith; in that way he was more like John Williams than any other film music composer during that time. As he matured and his work became more varied, his scores became fuller, more layered and even more inclined to enhance a film's narrative. While the horns and trumpets remained, more stringed instruments featured in his scores as he developed his style and, like Jerry Goldsmith in his later years, Horner was not afraid to incorporate electronic elements into his scores.

Please take the time to listen to some of my favourite pieces of Horner's music and enjoy the talent that we, as movie-lovers, were privileged to hear every time he composed for a film.

Battle Beyond the Stars - A great score for a medicore movie ...

There's nothing like a Roger Corman production to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and so it was with Battle Beyond the Stars - a low budget sci-fi rip-off of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai story. The film starred The Waltons' Richard Thomas, George Peppard, Robert Vaughan, Sybil Danning and John Saxon as the villainous Sador of the Malmori! Made for $2 million, Horner's score went a long way in helping the film's trailer sell it as a rousing action adventure film in much the same way as Star Wars.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was the score that brought James Horner to the attention of the broader entertainment industry. The story has it that Jerry Goldsmith was far too expensive to bring back for another feature film score, but the Director Nicholas Meyer and Producer Harve Bennett wanted someone who could emulate that sound for a fraction of the cost. Horner was commissioned and his work on both this film and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock brought him to the attention of Directors like Ron Howard and James Cameron, both of whom would go on to use him throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Polar opposites: Commando and The Name of the Rose

Horner's versatility and ability to work on multiple projects at once made him very popular with Directors and Studios in the second half of the 1980s. If ever you wanted an example of how versatile Horner could be, check out the variation between his work on Commando and The Name of the Rose. It's interesting to note that he was able to incorporate a nationalistic theme into his music that captured the setting of the movie. In Commando, he uses a sound akin to a West Indian/South American steel drum to provide a musical motif that would culminate at the end of the movie, where the finale is played out on an island belonging to the Dictator of the fictional South American country of Val Verde!

Developing the nationalistic approach with Braveheart ...

Many Horner fans cite the Braveheart score as there favourite and there's no doubting that it's a great film score. What's really interesting about Braveheart is how Horner, yet again, created a musical motif for the film that made viewers think of Scotland, regardless of whether or not they had any understanding of Scottish music. It's a unique feat that Horner was able to pull-off time-and-again, where the music was not just background, orchestral noise, but boldly stepped forward into the scene to help accentuate and punctuate the actor's dialogue.

Avatar ...

Horner's work on blockbuster projects had scaled back a little since the early 2000s, but one Director he developed a strong working relationship with was James Cameron and he invited the Composer to score his last film, Avatar. The most successful movie in history is no small claim and, once again, Horner's work on the film went a long towards creating a complete movie-going experience for the viewer. This final track I've selected is more low-key than most, but speaks volumes about how much Horner had matured over three decades composing film scores where his focus on creating musical nuance for a film's characters underlined why he was so successful.

2015 is nearly half-way over and it's a good time to reflect back and look at the movies that have made an impact in the first six months of the year. I always felt that 2015 would be a great year for genre films, especially science fiction and comic book based movies. The reality of where we stand as of today is less than I expected given the the number of films that have been released. There's been some disappointing movies, whose flawed stories and execution are difficult to understand given the talent associated with the production. There have been, however, some great 'cinema fantastique' ...

1. Ex Machina

By far the most powerful genre film to be released in Australia this year, Alex Garland's directing debut is a great piece of film-making that made me stop several times after seeing it and think about how people relate to the world in which they exist. The film challenges the viewer to consider the question: do we really ever know anybody? Outstanding performances from the three main cast members (Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson & Alicia Vikander) make for great viewing in this intimate character-driven film. Alex Garland, who to this point has been highly regarded for his writing, shows that he is also a visual story-teller of considerable skill and gives the film a Stanley Kubrick feel, with his very deliberately staged shots and slow-build story tension. This is a five star film that more people need to see immediately.

2. Mad Max - Fury Road

Thank goodness! An action movie that relies more on physical stunts and the skill of the live-action movie-makers than it does post-production CGI. Don't think I'm anti-CGI, but Mad Max: Fury Road came along like a breath of fresh air with its simple car chase plot, an emphasis on on-set action and an oddball cast that captured the best of all three previous Mad Max movies and repackaged it for the 21st Century. Charlize Theron is an absolute stand-out as Furiosa, creating an iconic character who, according to some, is slated to re-appear should Warner Bros proceed with another film in the franchise. Despite a long, troubled production process, Mad Max: Fury Road has been worth the wait and reaffirmed George Miller as Australia's most talented and inventive film-maker.

3. Kingsman: The Secret Service

Matthew Vaughan did to Spy-Fi in 2015 what he did to comic book movies with Kick-Ass back in 2010, giving the genre a right royal reaming with his cutting satire about British society dressed up as an anti-Bond adventure. Colin Firth is great as Harry Hart, proving that there's no type of role to which he can't bring his unique brand of style and sophistication. Taron Egerton provides a solid account as Firth's protege 'Eggsy', but it's the supporting cast in Mark Strong, Michael Caine and Samuel L. Jackson that make Kingsman a stand-out piece of entertainment.

4. Fast & Furious 7

It's hard not to like Fast & Furious 7. It's a big, over-blown, ridiculous exercise in how far one franchise can take a set-piece action sequence, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. Despite Vin Diesel trying to ground the film in some sort of dramatic reality, his co-stars have other ideas as Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell and Jason Statham all recognize that a little bit of scenery-chewing is going to hurt anybody. None of the cast are going to be lining up in the Awards season, but as entertainment they don't come much bigger than this. The film also manages to pay a fitting tribute to the franchise's leading man Paul Walker, who, sadly, was killed in a car accident during while on a break from shooting the film.

5. Infini

If there's an award for getting the most impact from the smallest budget, Director & Writer Shane Abbess would have to be right up there in contention for it. Abbess pays homage to the likes of Ridley Scott and John Carpenter in his sci-fi tale about an inter-planetary Rescue Team sent to bring home the sole survivor (Daniel MacPherson) of a failed mission. What they lack in resource, the cast and crew of Infini make up for with enthusiasm and intensity. MacPherson and co-star Luke Ford make sure things remain interesting right until the very end and, dependent upon its digital download performance, it would be great to see what a second Infini adventure could look like with a little bit more in the budget.

Let's us know what you think. Do you agree with the Screen Fantastique Top 5 Movies for the first half of 2015?

There's also a lot we're looking forward to seeing in the second half of 2015, including Terminator Genisys, Ant-Man, Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, Fantastic Four, Hitman: Agent 47, Sinister 2, Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, The Martian, Crimson Peak, Spectre, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part Two and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. It's a big second half of the year and it all culminates in one of the biggest, most anticipated follow-up movies in cinema history. Let's do this all again in six months time!

In an effort to increase the integration between the Screen Fantastique website and the opinion pieces that I like to carry on about from time-to-time, I've decided to add the Weebly Blog feature to www.screenfantastique.com

In an effort to generate a level of user-interaction, I would encourage readers to post comments in response to comments that I make. The only request I make is that we all keep comments respectable and on topic. I am happy for people to venture an opinion, but it should be based on a reasonably well constructed line of critical thought. If you want to comment as to why something stinks, please make sure you can support it with a reason.